Alan Tracy is an independent film director and film producer currently based in Minnesota. He was a recent guest commentator on our MIDG Oscars Podcast.

He is releasing his latest short film, The Strike, this week.

Alan Tracy is no newcomer to film in Minnesota. He has been making films in the Twin Cities and Los Angeles for the past 11 years now. During this time he has completed 18 short films and one music video, and has helped on other various shorts, pilots, and web series. His latest film, The Strike, is being released this week and he is very excited to see the response to his latest work.

The Strike is a unique view of domestic violence that covers many women’s issues and relationship troubles. It follows a couple as they deal with complications from an unexpected pregnancy, separation, love, and violence. It is a solid story and production for a short film produced at this level, and deserves a place on any short film must-see list.

You can catch The Strike here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/thestrike

You can see more of Alan’s work at CollidingPictures.com. You can also follow him on Twitter: @collidingpix or Facebook: /collidingpictures

The Unearthing, directed, produced, edited, and flat-out hustled by Tristan James Jensen, is a coming-of-age, supernatural discovery film done on a shoestring budget that surprised a lot of filmgoers at this year’s Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Film Festival. The movie stars local actors Riley Yearly, Angelina Masciopinto, and Kaleb Miller. It was filmed on location in Stillwater, Minnesota. You can watch the trailer here.

Well, it’s that time once again, and as always, I didn’t get around to a lot of the films I would have liked to see – as I write this, a DVD of Woody Allen’s Midnight in Parissits on my desk, glaring at me – but there comes a time when every movie lover has to call it a year. I have somewhat arbitrarily picked today as that time, so here now are my top 10 favorite films of 2011:

# 10) MELANCHOLIA – anyone with whom I talk movies already knows how much I love Lars von Trier, and though this is definitely not my favorite of his films (2003’s Dogville still takes that honor), it is nonetheless a striking and powerful depiction of the nature of depression, as well as a highly unusual and compelling look at what the impending apocalypse might feel like. The stunning opening and closing sequences alone make this film impossible to ignore, or to forget. Read More

Meet Mavis Gary. Peculiar name, sure, but consider the woman: she’s an alcoholic, forever single, 40-year-old former beauty queen for Minnesota (Mercury, to be exact). Fitting that someone so alienating comes from a place named after a planet. It’s worth noting that Young Adult doesn’t follow any sort of conventional formula (even if that’s becoming a bit conventional these days). Diablo Cody, who won a well-deserved Oscar for writing Juno, and Jason Reitman, who received a well-deserved nomination for directing it, team up again to bring us this divisive film. That’s probably the best way of putting it. It seems to be something you either fall in love with or hate from the moment it starts. I’m happy to say that I fell in love with it, and its characters. Even Mavis. Read More

Here we present a look at two films that many people will not only not â€œget,â€ but may have some difficulty in even seeing for themselves, as they are not widely available for viewing as of yet. Noah Tilsen’s Grinning Faces and Roger Davidson’s Street Hassle are two micro-budget indie shorts, both approximately 30 minutes long, made by two of the more promising filmmakers currently at work in the Twin Cities of my home state, Minnesota. Both films are dark (both in cinematography and content), stylish and disturbing, with a bit of gallows humor and a strong sense of impending doom and madness. It is this reviewer’s opinion that short films are too often overlooked, and I try to rectify this oversight by occasionally reviewing them here; in fact, my first article as an official writer for this site was a lengthy analysis of one of my favorite films, Luis Bunuel’s 16-minute masterpiece, Un Chien Andalou (1929): http://moviesididntget.com/2011/01/17/un-chien-andalou-kill-your-symbols/

Full disclosure: though I had nothing directly to do with the making of Grinning Faces, several of those both behind and in front of the camera are friends or acquaintances of mine, which is also true of Street Hassle; additionally, I have a minor, non-speaking role in Hassle, though my influence on the film is so minimal, I feel that it is not a conflict of interest for me to review it here. I thought it best to be up-front and honest about this, and I will do my utmost to provide unbiased reviews of both.